blog like a girl?

You throw like a girl.
Your hair looks like a girl's.
You run like a girl.
Your bike looks like a girl's.
Your ride your bike like a girl.
You dance like a girl.
You kick like a girl.
You play like a girl.
You cry like a girl.
You scream like a girl.
You dress like a girl.
You drive like a girl.
You swing like a girl.
You fight like a girl.
You sing like a girl.
You sneeze like a girl.
You laugh like a girl.
You talk like a girl.

Note that "girl" and "fag" are interchangeable in the above.

Here's what I think.

The insult in its common use has little to do with a direct comparison to any particular individual - which would explain why the authors of such insults rarely feel their words are sexist or in any way bigoted. The insult calls on a definition of "girl" or "fag" which means not so much "juvenile female" or "gay guy" but more specifically things inappropriately unmasculine.

That these labels are used for this purpose does kind of make me wonder if this is an indication that all things are supposed to be masculine. Sort of subverts the whole binary gender role thing though.

And I think ultimately it's just an analogy. That is, while there is no individual or perhaps no specific people (whole real people) who are being referenced in the "like a _____" frame, there is a semantic collection, a prototype which has an unfortunate negatively tinged essence. This property of the abstract group can and will be applied to (even real) members of the group, current or subsequent.

It's hard to know how the negative "unmasculine" property (or set of properties) came to be applied to the group and the group members even in the apparent absence of experience with individuals from the group or with contrary experience with individuals from the group. My guess is that it occurs through a top-down, category to member spreading of the negatively charged property after this property has been applied to all categories which could be defined as definitionally non-masculine.

This contrasts with a bottom-up property affiliation, where icky, weak, whiney individual "girls" one after the other built up and reinforced the properties of the category.

My main reason for thinking it's more the former because honestly, how many gay guys could your average 10 year old boy have met? I know full grown straight men who, when asked "are you friends with anyone who is gay?" have to honestly answer that to their knowledge, they don't even know anyone who is gay. How fucked up is that?

I find it personally insulting and I think it's socially damaging that "girl" is used as such a negative label. I sometimes wonder if I am making too much of it. I wonder this when men who I thought were not dipshits go and say stuff like this ("crying like a girl") as a joking insult to one another, or even as a self deprecating comment. When I inquire, I am invariably told by such men that they have (a) engaged in a fair amount of self reflection and (b) they do not believe that the term implies a stereotypical set of beliefs about gender and subsequently (c) that the use of the term in this way (as opposed to _____ way?) is not sexist, does not transmit sexism, does not perpetuate sexism, is not derogatory to women and girls, does not reinforce the equation of NOT MASCULINE = BAD = FEMALE/GAY which can effectively serve to limit what roles real individual "not masculine" individuals are allowed while living in a world dominated by the NOT NOT MASCULINE.

Which brings me to today's news blurb.

Bad Thai cops to endure Kitty shame
Thai police officers who break rules will be forced to wear hot pink armbands featuring "Hello Kitty," the Japanese icon of cute, as a mark of shame, a senior officer said Monday.
...
The striking armband features Hello Kitty sitting atop two hearts.

"Simple warnings no longer work. This new twist is expected to make them feel guilt and shame and prevent them from repeating the offense, no matter how minor," said Pongpat, acting chief of the Crime Suppression Division in Bangkok.